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Built in Polk County, Oregon, the outpost consisted of a wooden blockhouse, sentry box, barracks, officers’ quarters, carpenter's shop, hospital, cook houses, blacksmith shop, tables, barn, sutler's store, and laundress quarters.[2] The wood blockhouse was built to provide a refuge to settlers of the area in case of attack by the Native Americans.[3] After the fort was abandoned the block house was moved from the hill it was positioned on and served as a jail in the Valley Junction area, and later moved about 30 miles (48 km) east to Dayton.[3]

Total cost to build the fort was $36,053.[2] The post's first troops were under the command of William Babcock Hazen.[3] This garrison consisted of 76 men under three officers, but was reduced in 1858 to two officers and 33 enlisted men.[3]

Company D of the Fourth California Infantry took over at the fort on November 11, 1861 under the command of Lyman S. Scott.[4] They replaced the Ninth Infantry that was commanded by 1st Lieutenant Philip A. Owen.[4] For a time between September 1863 and October 1864 the post was under the command of 2nd Lieutenant James Davison.[4]

General Philip Sheridan was posted at the fort until the outbreak of the American Civil War and supervised the construction.[2] At the time he was only a lieutenant in the U.S. Army.[5] Sheridan commanded Fort Yamhill from June 26, 1857 to July 31, 1857, and from June 26, 1861 to September 1, 1861 and was promoted to the rank of captain on May 14, 1861.[4]

Also posted at Fort Yamhill was corporal Royal A. Bensell whose journals became the award-winning book, All Quiet on the Yamhill: The Civil War in Oregon by Royal A. Bensell. Edited by Gunter Barth.[4]